Try to Bite My Style
by The Once Caged Bird
Summary: Teenage Peter learns a thing or two about the Captain on a solo rescue mission. Namely, that he's not useless without his arrow. (part 5)


**[LK was here. And she wrote this to Yeah Yeah by Willy Moon. (lyrics used directly below) Shout out to my sis for posting this on her account!]**

' _Hey, hey, hey, hey, yeah_  
 _Tryin' to bite my style?  
Hey, hey, hey, yeah how you like me now?'_

Peter crawled through the vents of A'askavariia's smelliest double max prison. He held his tracker in front of him, cramped though it was, to keep a bead on which turns he needed to take. His blipping red dot was getting closer to the blipping blue dot so he figured he couldn't be too lost.

His Captain had run across some trouble. Now it was down to Peter Jason Quill to prove he didn't deserve to be on the Lunch Menu by dishing out the most daring of rescues.

Kraglin owed him big for this. He was thirteen damn it! Not eight. He couldn't squeeze through these vents no better than Taserface could speak without making it rain spittle. Seriously, where'd Udonta sign on that walking turd-streak anyway….

Peter's dot reached its destination. He inched forward until he found a grate to look through. Below him was an interrogation room. Surprise, surprise, the Captain wasn't exactly cooperating.

* * *

Yondu was bleeding enough to get the concrete floor slippery.

His captors had strung him up on a cord with his wrists tied above his head in order to make a tough punching bag out of him. Bruises for days decorated his already scar-marked skin.

"Reev does not have to break all your ribs, Udonta."

A tall tentacled A'askavariian with an oily smile watched Yondu sway under the onslaught of punches he received from a crony. He raised a limb for a cease order and then draped that same limb over the Captain's shirtless shoulders.

"He won't move on to incisions if you provide us with the intel we desire," he mock whispered to Yondu, plenty loud as well.

The six guards in the room with him snickered. The bulky one, Reev, juggled a bag between his many arms before shaking said bag near their prisoner's ears. All manner of sharp objects clinked and screeched therein.

"Wut's inner idn't party favors. Ya best tell Cell Master Xilso wudever he wants ta know."

The leader, Xilso, recoiled when Yondu hawked a mouthful of blood in his face. The Cell Master withdrew a handkerchief from his uniform pocket and wiped himself off. He sighed.

"I heard from your previous owners you'd be difficult."

"Dija hear how many dozens I riddled with holes?" Yondu growled, raggedly.

His head hung low and his breath came in labored billows. Xilso circled him like he was prey.

"Indeed. Several Kree slavers, as we understand, couldn't be identified. That is why we confiscated your arrow."

The A'askavariian pulled a long sabre from the sheath buckled at his waist. He pressed a button on the hilt and electricity jumped to a tinny beat along the length of the blade. Xilso preformed ripostes and moulinets, striking any air within a Terran hair of his future fencing dummy.

"My benefactor isn't the most patient man. I'll ask you again, where's the cargo you stole from him?"

Yondu beckoned him with a nod. "Come a little bit closer."

As soon as Xilso leaned forward, Udonta head-butted him so hard spots appeared in each man's vision.

"SUNNUVA SKRULL!" Xilso thundered. He yanked Yondu towards him, sabre poised, murder in his eyes.

"He's Centaurian."

The guards and the Cell Master turned.

"Oh, right. Hello" said Quill. The teenager offered a jaunty wave before nailing them one by one with his element gun. It was tight quarters though and Reev managed to slam the human up against the cell wall during his salvo.

Peter deftly flipped the gun around in his palm and fired it upside down straight into Reev's wobbly gut. The professional torturer slid over and off of him, gurgling his final curse.

Quill was feeling smug when suddenly, appendages, more than he thought strictly necessary on a being, bound him in a full nelson.

"I love when stars align! I can't believe you kept it!" crowed Xilso.

Peter was hauled backwards in the direction of the cell door. He elbowed Xilso in the jaw but the overgrown squid barely registered it.

"HEY!" Peter yelled.

Rope and twine snapped.

Peter was still trying to get free when he was wrenched out of Xilso's arms, the A'askavariian's suckers popping as they unstuck from his body.

Yondu hurled Quill away from himself and the Cell Master. The fight between the adults was over in seconds. Now liberated, the Centaurian flung the A'askavariian into the wall Peter met earlier and wasted no time in anchoring fangs into his neck.

Xilso shrieked and scrabbled to asphyxiate Yondu with his tentacles but his frantic grip only caused Udonta to clamp down like a vice. Placing a knee on his chest, Yondu pushed the pair of them apart, prying a chunk of the Cell Master's throat from him as he did.

Not too taken with his grizzly prize, the Captain spat the filthy tasting gore at Xilso's feet. His enemy thrashed in his death throes but Yondu spared him just a single dissatisfied sneer.

Peter, half traumatized and half riveted, gawked. Yondu rounded on him.

"Kid! Just what in hells bells d'you think you're doin' here?!"

"You- _you ripped his throat out!_ _ **With your freakin' teeth!**_ "

Peter had seen Yondu kill droves of his opponents with extreme prejudice before but never without his primary weapon. He'd not been prepared for… _that_ level of brutality.

"What did I need to use? Nice words? Answer me, why is it you're here and not Taserface?"

"For real?! You expected him to rescue you?! That _**literal**_ **drooling moron?!** "

What Yondu _expected_ was for Kraglin to send someone to fetch him who was closer to disposable. Why else hire the occasional huge arithmetic-challenged sadist if not for situations such as these?

The prison alarms went off. Yondu kicked the cell door open.

Peter followed and finally caught sight of the Captain's back. Was that a crossword puzzle gone very wrong or was it flesh? How many scraps had Yondu been in as a space pirate?

In the hallway of the cell block, chalky smoke began spewing out of grates from the vent system girding the ceilings.

"That'd be the Warden releasin' knockout gas. Where's your helmet?"

Peter was pulling off his shirt and wrapping the cloth around his head as a make-shift obstruction. He and Yondu matched; bare from the waist up.

"Come to it, where's your coat? You'll earn that fearful reputation a lot less quick not bein' known as a Ravager."

And he'd be a lot less likely to get recognized by weekend bounty hunters Ego convinced to come and re-collect him.

"Had to shed it going into the vents. It was getting snagged on stuff."

Another task for the tailor: tear-resistant leather. Quill was a magnet for trouble so he'd have his commissioned first. Ravager red warned off potential threats by being a threat itself; functioning much like aposematism - predator's colors.

Peter would learn to wear it as writ habit.

"You're docked a week's wages."

"You don't even pay me!"

"Pilot privileges then, and I'm refusin' you leave to go planetside the next two times we make berth."

Peter shoved something into Yondu's hands. His Yaka arrow. Pride and astonishment flickered in the Captain's expression. Peter, a vast contrast, was surly.

Yondu acknowledged that _maybe_ he had reason to be all frowns today. Ah, well. He'd make it up to the ravenous teen and let him sneak extra portions from Cook's larder this week.

He slapped Peter roughly on the back.

"Atta boy" Yondu grinned.

"That's a rescue point for me, you know?".

"You can keep keepin' count kid but you can't catch up to yours truly."

The hallway was fit to burst with armored guards in gas masks. Smoke afforded them cover and then some.

"Can you see them?" asked Peter.

"Don't have to" Yondu replied.

His crest lit up and a whistle nocked his arrow near his chin.

"Stick close but stay back a pace."

* * *

Yondu and Rocket strolled the gangways of the Eclector. All around mutineers were felled by a high speed ballistic dancing in time to Jay & The Americans. Not bad for an _'old man with his magic stick'._

These cretins were fortunate he was in a hurry. He had to 'vamoose' some **seven-hundred** jumps past the edge of what's known in order to save his boy yet again. Plus, boost his score in their so-called game. That oughta teach the punk for traipsing off cocksure into danger.

Captain Udonta smirked at the thought of the boy's impending chagrin.


End file.
